Little talks
by Inkfire
Summary: She comes to talk, or be quiet. She sits by him in the half-dark, where she's seen him die a thousand and one times. She doesn't know why she's here, and he won't ask, either. Lucy and Jack dialogue scenes, set during the year that never was.


**This is another one of my old fics, getting typed/edited/posted at long last. Lucy Saxon and Jack Harkness dialogue piece, set during the year that never was, because Lucy fascinates me and for some reason I yearned to make them interact. **

**Before I begin, one very important point. The matter of Lucy Saxon being weak is mentioned several times during the fic. First—Lucy being an abused woman, I would like to stress that her being considered weak here is linked to the very specific character and situation of Lucy herself, and obviously and absolutely _not _to be taken as a generalization or judgment on abused women. ****(The abuse is only hardly mentioned here at all anyway.) ****This seems like it does and should not even need saying, but I prefer to be extra careful when such sensitive/potentially triggering issues are broached, just in case. Moreover, Lucy being weak is to be taken as the characters' judgment. Jack considers her to be so, and so does Lucy herself, in that part of her life. I'm not looking to write an essay or start a debate on whether she actually is or not ;)**

**Well, that being cleared—title comes from the lovely song by Of Monsters and Men, whose lyrics are just wonderfully fitting. Enjoy!**

* * *

She perches on some piece of metal, a few feet away from him, legs crossed and eyes vacant.

"Hello, ma'am," he drawls, amused, "how may I help you?"

"Oh, I'm afraid you can't," she speaks in a little lilt of a voice, ringing clear and hollow. "I just came here for a change of scenery. Quite sorry to disturb you."

"From the wife of my torturer, I appreciate the consideration," he points out.

"I know." She pauses, breathes deeply as her baby blue eyes flutter from ceiling to wires to tied-up, grinning captain, taking in the harsh lights and the chaos like something intricately familiar. Her slim hands tighten in her lap, but she otherwise appears unmoved.

"Not the place I would have imagined a pretty girl like you to favour spending her time in," he tries again, watching for her reaction. She might just turn out to be useful, and then again, might not. At any rate, he is intrigued and has nothing better to be doing.

There is a spasm that contracts her pale cheek, briefly, and she tosses her hair back. "I was just passing by."

She looks away again, arms tense and body braced as though ready to run. He entertains the thought of pointing out that _he _isn't the type to backhand a girl across the face if she does or says something he dislikes, or that being restrained as he is would make it impossible anyhow. In the end, he decides not to push. He wouldn't want that little bird to fly away, not that soon.

"Well, glad you thought to come by, Mrs. Saxon," he tells her quietly.

She looks him in the eye, then glances away again as she stands and smoothes over her dress. "Oh, captain, I suppose you may call me Lucy."

* * *

"It is so terribly hot down here. Stifling," she murmurs. Her sleeves are long and her collar high; he knows better than to point that out.

"Oh, I'm used to it. Been through worse," he laughs. "I've seen the desert, you know. And faraway islands, all kinds of places. You wouldn't believe those."

"I've been to the end of the universe." The words fall dully from her mouth, emotionless. Now, he watches for the twitches in her fingers. For lack of any better thing to do, he has learned how to read Lucy Saxon quite well.

"Ah. Me too. Not too pleasant either, plus I was travelling the rough way." He pauses for thought. "Wait—do you mean Utopia? What is left down there, exactly?"

"There was death left." She shrugs and ducks her head like it cannot touch her. "But Harry fixed it," she adds after a while. "He made everything so new. The pain and destruction feeding and building themselves all over again."

He scowls at that, a very wrong feeling seeping into his gut and spreading, ringing bells of alarm in his head. Utopia, the only other place the Master could visit. It once sounded like a pretty good thing. Now, he wonders how anything that concerns the Master could ever seem like good news. "And what, exactly, did precious Harry do?"

"I just said. He made everything brand new." She stares him straight in the eye. "Harry does that to people. Strips off their skin and leaves them raw, gives them a taste of power. If they can take it."

"Could you?"

Her next intake of breath is sharp, her lips trembling around it, mouthing mute words while her fingers curl and her eyelids flicker. Tiny, tiny reactions he spots only thanks to his intent focus, but still much more than she made him used to. Hitting right on a critical spot, then.

"No," she rasps eventually. "I was too weak."

Jack gives a non-committal grunt, shaking off the unexpected spark of pity as unease and uncertainty keep tugging at his gut. "But you say he made things _new_…" he tries again. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" A flash of metal gleams in his memory, subconscious speaking, and he blinks. _No way_.

"The Doctor figured it out," Lucy says. "The Doctor gets everything Harry does. And everything Harry does is for him to watch."

Disgust swells within Jack like a rising tide—and fear, and helplessness. "Well, I'm dumber than a Time Lord, from the look of it," he snaps. "_So tell me._"

"He made them new," Lucy repeats. "And they were hungry." She takes a step back. "So hungry. But I should go." Her voice is a hushed whisper. "He doesn't know I come down here to talk to you. Should never, ever know. Because it doesn't matter, it's nothing really. But it would make him angry."

"Lucy, wait," he calls after her, desperate for more information. The dormant wrath in him ignited by her flight, he yells after her without thinking: "Get the hell out of here!" He doesn't mean the room.

The ringing silence in response tells him she never will.

* * *

"You've come back."

She shrugs, frowns a bit. "I had nothing else to do."

"What is it you usually do, then?"

"Oh, nothing much. Harry likes to have me around to watch, when he does or plans things. I often don't really get it. More and more often these days. It's like there's a bubble swelling in my head, and his words are rushing past like water. I can hear it, I can hear it all, but my mind won't catch up. It lets things slip away. I was never too bright. But Harry used to say I wasn't that stupid either, because I could feel things better than I comprehended them. People. Power."

"What does he say now?"

"To me, you mean? Well, quite little. He's busy, he thinks so much all the time, and plans all the great terrible things. Besides, there's the Doctor to think about. And the drums."

"What's that drums nonsense again?"

"Oh, you know." Her gaze is vague and hazy. "He hears them always. Such a curse. It is what drives him, I think."

"Either way, it's madness." He licks his parched lips.

"It might be." Lucy is slowly looking around, eyes unfocused. "I wonder what it feels like to be mad. Whether it hurts… or one isn't really aware of it. Perhaps it just feels empty. That would be funny." She has an airy little laugh. "But no. Harry is never empty. He is always _there_, full of fierce thoughts and so very aware, with the drums pounding in his head."

"Shut up about him," he hisses.

"Shouldn't you be trying to get information out of me?"

Jack gives a dry, rough chuckle. "I already know bits and pieces. And this man makes me so tired," he breathes. "So, so very tired. He is destruction embodied."

Lucy ponders. "Yes, I think he is that."

"Doesn't it scare you at all?"

"Some days it does. He used to fascinate me so much. I was so proud of him, and of being his, standing by his side. Now…" She pauses for a long time, then carries on. "Now I cannot tell what I think. He leaves chaos in my head, terror and awe and pain, and the memory of how alive he used to make me feel. I don't feel very alive anymore. It's hard to think, and sometimes it's like most of the blood has been drained out of me. I try to be what Harry wants, what pleases him. But that doesn't seem like it's possible, after all."

"You were alive before him," he points out softly.

"I was very vacant. I didn't feel much at all, ever. I just wandered through life. Harry seared himself into my brain like a bloody sun." She inhales sharply. "I knew he was deadly, but I loved it."

"The deaths, did they feel real?" he asks, calm and matter-of-fact.

"Yes and no. The people were so small. Insignificant, like I had been. They became acts of power, little dots forming a whole. So much bigger than they would ever have been."

"When you've been around as much as I have, Lucy Saxon," he speaks through his teeth, keeping his voice very even, "you'll understand that a human being is never, ever any such thing as a dot."

"You speak just like the Doctor."

He swallows, hard. "And proud of that too."

She comes to sit by him. "Who are you, captain Harkness?"

"Besides the enemy and the immortal freak your husband likes to kill three times a week for sport, you mean?" He ponders for a while. "I am a man. A man of hope."

"That must be nice."

He does not answer, just allows the silence to stretch between them.

* * *

"What would you do, if you could run away?" she asks.

"I'd fight."

"Always the soldier."

"Always."

Lucy leans against the wall, arms wrapped tight around herself. "What would _you _do?" he asks her.

"I can't picture it."

"Do you have a family?"

"My father passed away. Harry…" She breathes deeply. "Harry was there. There for me. My father liked him very much. Helped him a lot, with his career."

"Your mother?"

"I wouldn't know what she thinks. She used to say Harry was a great man. And great men need wives in the shadows. That was what she'd been."

"Slightly different case."

"Indeed."

"If you were free, Lucy," he tries again, "you'd have a life… a life of your own."

Lucy shakes her head. "I'd only be empty again," she says, distant. "I own nothing. I achieve nothing. All I can do is watch. And I've seen so much, I could never be normal again."

"You don't know that."

"I think I do."

"Do you love him?"

She is quiet for a moment. "I cannot be sure anymore. I think I fear him passionately, and need him to exist."

"You really don't. You believe that only because you are a prisoner."

She meets his eye. "And do _you_ really believe that, captain Harkness?"

* * *

"Who is she, then?" she asks. "Martha Jones. I saw her, I believe, briefly. Nothing special."

"Oh, you are in for a surprise if you think she's not special." He cannot keep the pride out of his voice. "Martha Jones is gonna save the world. Just you wait."

If Lucy does not quite snort, it is out of good manners only. "One girl cannot save a world. That is a rather silly hope. You are no silly man."

"But I told you, I am a man of hope," he claims with his trademark grin.

She does not smile in return. "In a way that equals silly."

She sits quietly, twisting her fingers in intricate motions. He observes the swiftness, the troubled pattern of her moves and awaits the next words, patient. He has all the time in the world, and in this moment, he feels oddly at peace as he watches her—as a contrast, perhaps. He is that, a constant, unmoveable thing, and this is why Lucy Saxon always comes back.

Martha's name reminds him that he is strong—reminds him that he believes, and in whom. The thought brings a small smile to his lips.

"Martha Jones," Lucy repeats. "She cannot beat Harry."

"Why could she not?"

"Because Harry is so much more," she says as though speaking the obvious. "He would crush any human to sand. He holds the Doctor prisoner. He sees so far beyond what she can, or anyone can imagine."

"But what if she killed him?"

Lucy glances down. "If Harry died, I feel like the whole universe would shift. But he won't."

"Why?"

"I don't know. I can just tell. I feel it in my gut that he is indestructible. He will live on and reign over us all."

"Now _you _are the one being silly."

"Perhaps."

"Everybody dies," Jack states. "Well. I say that, but don't mind me."

And Lucy Saxon laughs, for she has seen him die many a time, the Master making sure she would watch. The sound is high, fractured, a chime echoed by a rattle of broken pieces. It sends a brief chill down Jack's spine.

Soon she sobers, and looks him in the eye. "Who do you think she is, this Martha Jones?"

"A strong woman," he tells her. "And I know you can feel that too. You know nothing of what a strong woman can achieve, Lucy. A woman who just says _no_. That is what makes you frightened, isn't it? You don't want to see her fall, and you wonder why. Well, I will tell you. This woman is stronger than you have ever been. But that's okay."

Lucy smiles a hard smile. "She can be strong all she wants. But it won't be enough."

Jack catches her gaze and holds it. "You know nothing," he tells her very gently. "All of us aren't condemned, Lucy. It's just you, as long as you let yourself be."

She slaps him, the sound echoing around the room.

He is quite surprised. He doesn't let it show. "Here. Some bite," he comments instead, smirking.

"You don't know me."

"I know only what you said. You seem to talk a lot around me, really. I could be offended, but I know it's not because you consider me a mere piece of furniture. It's because you think I'm never getting out. And in a way, neither are you."

She stares, hard. He stares right back.

"So, the question is, do you know yourself? Am I misled, or are you, or are we both?"

When she leaves, he suspects that this time she will not return.

Quite right too.

* * *

His hand is wary and gentle when he takes the gun from her.

"It's over now," he says, very low, very softly, as though speaking to a child. "Hush." Her blue, vacant eyes focus on his face. He isn't quite sure if she's staring straight through him. She might hardly recognize him, under those lights and away from his cell of many months. He is Jack Harkness and stands tall, no longer the prisoner who would watch her as she sat for hours, looked around numbly and spoke detached words, with a detached voice safe for no other ears.

She is not the same, either. She wears a bloody red dress and just shot her husband. He suspects her world has shifted and tumbled upside down today.

"Yes," she breathes, a tiny sigh. She blinks.

He pockets the gun and glances around. He can hear the Doctor's voice, swift and raw, fast turning to sobs. No regeneration is in sight.

He much prefers turning away, and gazing again at her doll face. His teeth are grinding; her features are slack.

Mr. Jones is looking at the Time Lords, shaken and trembling still, unable to tear his eyes from the Master. But Tish and Francine are staring at her. Still and wary, they squint from a distance, in astonishment. The world stands still around Lucy Saxon, leaving her disconnected. She meets his eye without expression.

"Over," he repeats, stressing the word. A small shiver ripples through her; realization, perhaps.

A little while later, he is still there when the authorities lead her away. She has hardly moved in all that time, but then she turns towards him, and he sees it—just a sad, tiny quirk of her scarlet lips. He gives her a smile back, for the sake of goodbyes, or perhaps just for her. She might need it, or deserve it; he doesn't care to dwell on such questions. Enough time and words and things unsaid have passed between them.

"It's your turn, Lucy Saxon," he tells her.

She frowns slightly, then her forehead smoothes. She does not ask what he means. He isn't sure exactly, either; the words just rushed up to his mouth, feeling right. Let her make of them what she will.

"What is a strong woman?" she asks him, and then amends: "To you."

His mouth twists as he ponders the question. "Not you, yet."

"I imagined as much."

"But maybe." He holds her gaze. "Lucy Saxon. You'll never forget any of this."

"I won't," she agrees. Her face a pretty mask, she walks away between two officers.


End file.
